“You got a bakery to launch.”

“I got a vacation to take.”

He held my eyes and I held his right back.

Then he decreed, “I’ll buy the plane tickets.”

“Brock –” I started to protest but he talked over me.

“Tess, I’ll… buy… the plane tickets.”

He was being firm in that way of his I knew he was taking charge of his woman so that firm was unyielding.

“Oh, all right,” I gave in and he grinned again.

Then his head dipped so his mouth was at my ear, “Now, let’s go back to me bein’ like chocolate that melts in your mouth.”

“That isn’t exactly what I meant,” I told him, his arms went around me and he rolled to his back, taking me with him.

Then his hand sifted into my hair, fisted gently and my head came up.

“I would hope not, darlin’, seein’ as every time you take me in your mouth, the last thing I do is melt.”

Hmm.

This was very true.

“This is true.”

And, again, he grinned.

And, it must be said, I liked it when my man grinned.

Then he brought my mouth down to his. Then he kissed me hard and I kissed him harder.

Then I took my time kissing other parts of him.

And when I did, those parts did not melt.

Chapter Twenty-One

Quiet Like

“Thank you,” I mouthed to the clerk at Dillard’s in Park Meadows Mall who was handing me my bag which held six pairs of boys swim trunks, this purchase made because, in two days, Brock, Joey, Rex and I were boarding a plane headed for Aruba and I’d found upon asking them to check that the boys were growing so fast none of their old swim trunks fit.

The clerk smiled at me as I turned away and I smiled back. I had my phone to my ear and a man named Raul was talking to me through it.

“It’s going to take another week,” he said.

“Um…” I started, moving through the store and already feeling Brock getting pissed even though he wasn’t there, in fact, he was nowhere near and he didn’t know that the contractor we hired to cut renovate my basement in order to build another bedroom downstairs was delaying even further.

However, since we contacted Raul the last week in February, this was the third delay taking us to the last week in March. Brock was not happy with the first delay, he was unhappier with the second and I had a feeling his unhappiness would significantly escalate with this one.

We needed this room because Olivia had caved or, at least, her attorneys had talked her into doing so mostly because, with Dade out of the picture, if she racked up a huge bill fighting a case she had no hope of winning, there was no one around to pay it. The stuff Dade gave Brock was useful but even without it, Hector had dug up so much dirt on her, Brock was sure to win. Hector had found they were often late to school and they were often hanging around after school because she was late picking them up. Furthermore, Olivia had not made loads of friends amongst the other mothers and therefore these mothers had happily chit chatted with hot guy Hector, telling tales of Olivia dropping the boys off late then not staying at the boys’ junior football and little league games or calling random Moms at the last minute during the game to ask another Mom to take the boys home and she’d pick them up later and her later meant later. Sometimes, the boys would be asleep at their friends’ houses before Olivia would show which meant she left them for hours.

And when she did all this, she was not at the soup kitchen spreading her benevolence amongst those less fortunate but shopping or getting laid by her bevy of boy toys.

Of this, Hector, too, had photographic proof.

Luckily, I did not see Hector’s proof. Unluckily, Hector had to considering he took the photos and his face upon handing over the evidence to a Brock, who was even unhappier to learn that his ex was less of a mother than he thought, shared the knowledge that Hector was of the same opinion as his bad boy brethren that bony wasn’t beautiful.

So, the papers had been drawn up, everyone signed them, a judge stamped his approval and the boys’ custody flip-flopped. Olivia had them every other weekend, Brock and I had them the rest of the time. Therefore, he wanted them settled and in what would be their permanent rooms. The first delay on the renovation meant that when they moved in with us, Rex had moved into my office upstairs that we converted to a bedroom and Joel into the guest bedroom (now his bedroom) downstairs. This was something Brock did not like because it didn’t say to Rex, “You’re home and settled”. He also didn’t like it because Rex was right next door to our room, the walls weren’t paper thin but they weren’t soundproof either and the reasons he didn’t like that were obvious. But there Rex was – a bathroom and hallway away.

Olivia was also coping with a move but hers would have been more settled if she was less, well… her. Dade had paid six months advance rent on a furnished, two-bedroom apartment for her. When he came into my bakery a few days after Olivia left, he told me he did this for Joel and Rex and I figured this was true. But I knew it was also because he was a good man and if he tried to do something pure ass**le, like kick her out on her ass without any support (even if she did deserve it), he’d probably spontaneously combust or something.

He had not given her any money, however.

“She was very fond of John Atencio,” he said to me as he forked into a piece of my soured chocolate cake (to-die-for) with milk chocolate buttercream icing. Dade, I’d learned since Olivia left and he became a regular at Tessa’s Cakes, was a chocolate cake man. “I’m certain she can make her frequent trips to that store work for her.”

John Atencio was a fabulous, exclusive jewelry store and I figured Dade meant that Olivia was going to be spending some time in a pawn shop or, perhaps, learning how to sell things on on-line auctions.

Needless to say, although things had worked out for Brock and the boys, and the boys, to my surprise (and delight and, it must be said, Brock’s too), had settled in quickly and easily, relaxing in my house and making themselves at home within days (or, more like hours since I made a carrot cake for Rex and a chocolate cake for Joel and this obviously screamed

“You’re home!” to now eleven and thirteen year old boys), this did not mean our nightmare was over.

No.

Not at all.

Because Olivia was a bitch and, I was learning, when none of the games bitches could play were swinging their way, they scrambled.

Therefore Olivia was a regular at the Station and her name was on the display of Brock’s phone so often, it was a wonder it hadn’t etched itself into the glass. When she phoned or visited him at work, she did not want to talk to or about the boys. No. She needed Brock to hang shelves. She needed Brock to look over legal documents Dade was sending her. She needed Brock to look at a sink that had a drip (even though she was in a freaking apartment complex with a freaking maintenance man). She was selling her Mercedes (something Dade allowed her to have) and she needed him to help her. She was buying a new car and she needed him to go with her so she didn’t get screwed.